I'm going to try to detail Max's birth story here, along with other events going on at that time.
Maximilian Eli Starr was born Thursday May 7, 2009 at 12:05 a.m. He might have been born May 6 if they'd had me push right away, but no one seemed to be in any hurry as they assembled the table, collected the doctor, and told Dan he could run to the parking lot to get the camera.
Mom and Dad were on a cruise in Europe. They had requested that I not go into labor until their return, and I told them not to worry. Surely that would not happen.
Since we all live next door to each other in our little compound out here, my parents had delegated their home and yard care to everyone. In my pregnant state, my only assigned task was seemingly light-duty ... I was to care for Mom's (insane, evil) cat whose name is, by default, Kitty Kitty. (My use of the word "is" in that sentence already gives away that I did not kill her, although I wanted to.) She has tried to maim everyone living out here, so no one else cared if she lived or died. (Dan, Gabe and I will always remember the day we were sitting peacefully at our kitchen table, eating, when suddenly Brian appeared on our back deck, stomping and pounding, jumping up and slamming his feet down as hard as he could like a madman. The cat had bit him. He chased her, she hid under our deck, and Brian was not done with the fight! She soon came running out with Brian still in hot pursuit. As the story goes, she ran by my dad, who apparently was taking Brian’s side and offered, “She went that way!”)
Anyway, leaving out food for Kitty Kitty in Mom’s absence was easy enough, but beckoning her to come into the barn at night (so they coyotes wouldn't get her) and locking her in there was another story! On Monday, May 4, after feeling like we'd finally made friends, I managed to pet the cat, and she suddenly turned and sunk her teeth into my hand. Now I was terrified that my baby would be exposed to toxoplasmosis! I called the OB and they said they’d do a blood test for it the next time I went in for a checkup, that Wednesday May 6.
One night as I was searching and calling for Kitty Kitty, I thought I spotted her in the grass behind the chicken coop. I approached the white object I thought was her, but walked away as I got close and realized that it wasn’t. Well, in the daylight the white object turned out to be a scrap of cloth that someone had used as toilet paper when he defecated in our backyard! Glad I didn’t get any closer! The people next door were having a group of immigrant workers build a spare room on the side of their house, and these workers were choosing to jump the fence and use our yard as a toilet! We had previously discovered evidence of this on the very back of our property, in the woods. When Dan told me about it, I was so angry that I was ready to march straight over to the neighbors’ house and have the problem corrected! But Dan calmed me down and said that he and Dad had decided to let it go. Now, a week or two later, heavy had rains caused the backyard to become very soggy, so I guess the offenders decided not to trek into the marshy grass and get their feet wet to use their “toilet.” Instead the “evidence” was being left right out in the open, right where we walk! At that point, this pregnant mama DID march over to the neighbors’ to request that their workers show some manners!
Early in the morning on the date of my next OB appointment, Wednesday, May 6th, I started experiencing some contractions. They kept me awake for awhile, and then I managed to doze till 7 a.m. I encouraged Dan to go ahead in to work, but when I finally got out of bed and discovered him lying on the couch I was relieved that he hadn’t. I probably could have driven myself to the OB, but with the way I was feeling I was glad I didn’t have to.
Dr. Johnson had been encouraging me to go into labor for a couple of weeks, and I kept wondering what the big rush was! When I told her that I was finally having some contractions, she brightened and predicted that the baby would be born Friday, since that was the day of the next full moon. Then she did the vaginal exam and announced, “You’re at 4 centimeters!” and that I was 70-80% effaced. I was flabbergasted, remembering what terrible pain I went through before I managed to reach 4 cm the last time. I told her that the contractions were getting kind of bad – tolerable, but I wasn’t sure if I could sleep again with them. She asked if I wanted to go to the hospital now, and I told her no, that I would wait and watch.
When we left the OB office, Dan, Gabe and I had lunch at Chick-fil-A, then went to Target. Not expecting to go into labor for a couple more weeks at least, I hadn’t finished packing my hospital bag, and I still needed to shop for a few items! Dan was feeling more and more nervous as it became evident that we were going to wind up in the hospital soon, and he didn’t have anything packed either. When we got home I noticed that I was bleeding a little. I called the OB office, and the MA told me that Dr. Johnson had stripped my membranes. So THAT’S why it hurt when she did the vaginal exam! I was a bit irritated that she’d done it without my knowledge or consent. She was ready for this baby to be born!
I started cleaning out the refrigerator, throwing scraps to the chickens, washing the clothes and packing a hospital bag. When I timed my contractions afterward I discovered that they were coming consistently every 7 minutes. I called the OB and she told me to have something to eat, lie down, and then if the contractions didn’t stop, to come to the hospital. I followed the instructions. Clari came over, saw me lying in bed, and advised me to head to the hospital, since maybe I didn’t have as much time as I thought I did! “The second one comes faster,” she kept warning. At around 5 p.m. the UPS man dropped off a package – my back massager! Thank goodness that came, because at the moment I was starting to need it desperately!
Around 6 p.m. Dan, Gabe and I were headed to the hospital. By then the contractions were awful, and Dan was using the massager on my back while I moaned and he drove. Gabe kept saying, “My mom’s CRAZY!”
When we got to the hospital I couldn’t walk to triage and got in a wheelchair, muttering that I was going to feel really stupid if I came in in a wheelchair and they wound up sending me home. I was shattered when the triage nurse told me I was still at 4 cm!! But, she said, I was 100% effaced. She said she’d call my doctor and check me again in an hour. In the meantime Gabe was getting bored and whining, “When are we gonna get out of here?! I wanna play video games!” till I irritably hollered at him to please just shut up. “My mom’s CRAZY!” he asserted again.
The unit was terribly busy and I spent a lot of time waiting. When the nurse checked me again I was at 5 cm and nearly incapable of moving because of the pain. They asked if I could walk to the labor room, and the answer was a definite, “No!” I cried and moaned like a baby, and the delivery nurse, a young and pretty version of Nurse Ratchet, disliked me immediately. She kept asking me to fill out forms, move my body, and answer questions, and I wasn’t cooperating! She was frustrated with me, but I was just frozen in pain with each contraction! When she checked me again I was at a 7 and ready to beg for pain meds! She gave me a shot of some short-acting narcotic and said that the anesthesiologist was not available for my epidural. He was in a c-section and could not come until he finished. Thankfully Dan's parents arrived to pick up Gabe, so he was happier, and so were we.
The next time the nurse checked me I was at 8 cm and ready for my epidural RIGHT NOW, thank you!! She seemed to take sick pleasure in informing me that the anesthesiologist was STILL too busy to see me. At 8 cm the policy is not to administer any more narcotics, so I realized that it was possible that the anesthesiologist would not be free to see me until AFTER the baby was born, with no more pain meds in the meantime. She agreed that this may very well happen!
When Dr. Somebody the anesthesiologist, whose face I never saw, finally made it into my room, I was at 8 or 8 ½ cm and losing all control. As the epidural took effect they lowered my head and my whole body started shaking. I asked if that was a normal thing to happen with the epidural and was informed that this was a normal thing to happen at this phase of labor – the transition phase. The next time the nurse checked me, as the epidural kicked in, she reported, “She’s all the way.” They had me try a quick push, but I wasn’t really trying to push and kept talking instead of bearing down. I felt guilty about it but was thinking, I’m not ready to push the baby out yet – I’m too tired to take care of a baby right now! After I tried one “real” push, the nurse told me that my baby would probably be born with the next push, and she went to assemble equipment and collect the doctor. Dan ran off for the camera. Once everyone had their stuff together and their wits about them, Max was born in two more pushes.
As Max came out I saw Dr. Johnson reach and quickly snip his cord, which surprised me since she had forced Dan to cut the cord the last time, despite the fact that he’d already stated he didn’t want to! Apparently she did that since the cord was wrapped around his neck.
Max was handed to me briefly, then weighed and cleaned up on a table next to me, then handed to me again. Neither he nor I left the room again for two more days. He stayed with me in my arms and slept with me in my bed. No one seemed to mind. That night I thought he would sleep very soundly, but he didn’t. In fact, he and I stayed awake much of the night staring at each other, too enrapt to sleep. My worries about catching up on sleep melted away as I held him and thoroughly enjoyed the initial bonding period that I missed with Gabe. My new little angel was in my arms. After all this time I was finally a new mommy again!
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